Almendares - who has directed research programs at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, and won awards from Oxfam and the Barbara Chester Foundation - also runs a free clinic in the Honduran capital.

"The Honduran people want to change the essence of the Constitution, and they've wanted this for a long time," says Almendares, who is also a central figure in the powerful but pacifist National Front of the Popular Resistance (FNRP), which arose in response to the military-backed coup, and the martial law and repression that followed.